weezerToday in Weezer History: 12/14/1993 - Cover photo for the Blue Album is shot. Today in 1993, Weezer met up in Bel Air, CA home/photography studio ofthe great Peter Gowland (1916-2010), who made his name shooting iconic colorful imagery of people in the 50's and 60's. He was selected to be thephotographer (over more contemporary big names like Michael Lavine) becauseof the intention to ape the amazing look of the 60's photo of the Beach Boys in their striped shirts used on a budget line cassette that Rivers had. Theband had in fact bought matching striped shirts and were wearing them at some of their recent "Self Punishment Tour" shows, but in the end they decided to stick with "regular clothes" - a little bit nerd, a little bit preppie, a little bit sloppy. Basically what they usually wore anyway. Peter Gowland's house was an amazing and huge midcentury modern home thatbasically looked like the gleaming houses in Peter's 50's photos. Peter had set up a HUGE blue background that the guys stood in front of (having requested the same blue look at the Beach Boys cassette), and 10 or so rollsof film later they had their shot. Then it was on to 2 other setups. First the setup that produced the photo later known by fans as "the gay Christian society photo", then another setup at a guest house nearby in front of the 50's vintage fireplace. That shot was used on the rear of the "Say It Ain'tSo" single. (Cont'd...)

weezer...Early that morning, before coming down, Pat decided to go from short hair to zero hair for the cover shot. This was initially met with worry from the other guys, that the band wouldn't appear as "normal and wholesome", but in the end, it made no difference. Photoshop was used later to smooth out the shadows the guys cast on the blue background, but on the "full legs" version of the cover used in japan, the shadows around their feet are still visible, giving a glimpse of the spacethey were in. The lower right shot is a previously never seen outtake from the session, showing the bottom edge of the blue background. This shows thatwhen the 'full legs' cover was made, additional blue was photoshopped in around their feet, while carefully allowing the shadows (which were actually on the concrete floor) to show. Peter and his wife had a live in assistant who looked and acted exactly like "Alice" from the Brady Bunch. She offered the guys "a big glass of milk!", to which Brian said he doesn't drink milk. To which she replied, "Oh, pookie pookie!!" She was a rather weird person to be in the same room with for 5 hours.